Page 14 June 2012
www.thesoutherncross.org.au
The
Southern Cross | news
More than 160
communications
professionals gathered
in Sydney last month to
look at the phenomenon
of social media and how
the Catholic Church
can use it to spread
the message of Christ
in our world. Jenny
Brinkworth was among
the delegates and
reports on the issues
and challenges raised by
some of the speakers.
With the theme of the Sydney Catholic
Media Congress "Communicating the
Word: Timeless Messages, New Media",
participants were full of enthusiasm as the
impressive line-up of speakers extolled
the virtues of blogging, e-conferencing,
Facebook and Twitter.
Even the attending bishops were
commended for their energetic and
positive approach to the topic by keynote
speaker Monsignor Paul Tighe, Secretary
to the Pontifical Council for Social
Communications.
But amidst all the optimism there were
some sobering thoughts put forward
by people like ABC Online religion and
ethics editor Scott Stephens and theology
lecturer Dr Matthew Tan who argued that
online communication was in essence
narcissistic and lacked the depth required
to develop humanity.
Stephens warned that we need to be weary
of "the decay of the social" and losing what
it means to be "in life together".
"The Church has always been about the
social; the network of relationships, the
face-to-face physicality of the body of
Christ," he said.
"So the more I hear about the globalisation
of new media and the importance of going
where the people are, I would say the more
important it is for the Church to re-embrace
locality.
"The parish has never been more important
than it is now, because these forms (of new
media) bastardise pseudo relationships on
Facebook and Twitter where people can
opt in and opt out, where they can form
these fragile associative communities that
reinforce their own opinion and belief."
He likened it to "cultural incest" which
breeds nothing good and advised against
the "massive proliferation of Twitter
accounts from the faithful".
Similarly, Dr Tan spoke of the constraints
of cyberspace in promoting "virtue" which
is instilled in the body of a person and
therefore can only be achieved in real
space and time.
Irish-born Monsignor Tighe, who admitted
from the outset that he spoke digital with
an accent, was more circumspect. The
former Director of Communications in the
Archdiocese of Dublin said everyone in the
business of communications was trying
to come to terms with the so-called social
media.
He stressed that the transformation was
about more than just technology and that
it was difficult to predict how it would
progress but he was adamant that the
Church could not be removed from it.
"We can't pretend to stand outside and
observe; we are involved," he said.
"These technologies are truly a gift to
humanity...they transform how we learn,
they enable the forming of community
and have extraordinary potential for the
wellbeing of the Church and for society."
Monsignor Tighe cautioned that there
were risks that had to be acknowledged
such as superficiality in living out
relationships, escape into emotionality and
sensationalism and the prevalence of the
most convincing opinion over the desire
for truth. The new technologies could
also be used for ignoble purposes such
as "fostering hate, promoting untruths
and debasing human sexuality and the
goodness of the human body". But he said
people were waiting for the headline "Pope
condemns new technology" and that would
not be forthcoming.
He likened the digital world to a "digital
continent" with which we needed to
engage and evangelise in a similar fashion
to evangelisation and mission of the past.
"Just as we learnt languages, customs and
enculturation, we need to learn that again,"
he said.
"The world of digital media is where
many of our younger people are spending
increasing amounts of time -- if we're not
there, we're not real; if we're not there,
we're not in their world."
Monsignor Tighe spoke about the difficulty
of the Church communicating its message
of God's unconditional love because it
was "counter cultural" in a world where a
person's worth was seemingly determined
by their "wealth, beauty, popularity and
ability to impress others".
But he insisted that the Church's message
was "profoundly timely" because it would
"always touch the hearts of human beings
as long as they have the freedom and
capacity to discover who they are".
"Deep in our human nature is this yearning
for relationship, yearning to be loved,
yearning to be noble in my own form of
living," he said.
There is reason for hope, he argued, in the
fact that there were signs of these values
in the digital culture, such as the desire for
connectivity, the search for answers (eg
Google) and the capacity to share stories
and information in a non-commercial way
(eg Wikipedia).
"Human nature still recognises sharing and
living for others as a value," Monsignor
Tighe said.
"Networking, working together,
collaboratively, the desire for community...
is still relevant even in a time and culture
which seems very different."
Like Scott Stephens, Monsignor Tighe
believes that parishes are central to the
way the Church communicates in the
digital age.
"Our church is a community of
communities -- we are the original network
society despite our hierarchical structures,"
he said.
"We need to make it more linked-in, more
structured so that our communication
reflects the reality of who we are.
"We have the local, what's happening at
the local level is important. The Internet
is global but also local -- the same as
the Church. We are universal but we are
particular."
He cited as an example the current critique
of the Church in Ireland as a result of
the clerical sex abuse scandals and yet
Catholics were saying "but my parish is
great" because that's where they gained
support when a family member was sick
and their "lived experience" of the Church
was good.
He acknowledged that the universal
Church needed to find ways to "nourish"
the local church.
Both Stephens and Monsignor Tighe
warned against "dumbing down" theology
but Mgr Tighe qualified this by suggesting
there needed to be an "entry level"
language in our communication to a
broader audience.
Debating